Crocheted plastic bag plastic bag holder

No, that’s not a typo you see in the title. This is my plastic bag holder that I crocheted using plastic bags. You know, the kind that you get 800 of from a trip to the grocery store where, if your local store is anything like mine, 2 would have been sufficient. Despite my best efforts, we too frequently grabbed a few items on the way home from work without enough forward planning to have taken reusable bags with us. And so began the mountain of plastic bags that ended up in our pantry. My original plan was just to make something to store them in, but while rooting through my yarn stash I remembered just how versatile crochet can be in terms of it’s starting materials. I originally learned to crochet because I wanted to make a flower to go on a bag that I was making, and I definitely got bitten by the crochet bug. Despite spending years watching my Mom and Grandmother knit at what can only be described as the speed of light, knitting just never worked for me. I never really understood shaping, and while I can get a half decent square or rectangle out of it, I just couldn’t get my head around anything more complicated than that. Crochet on the other hand was a completely different story. There’s something about it that’s inherently easier for me to understand, whether it involves changing the shape, changing the stitch styles, or a combination of the two.

Early on in my crochet journey, a friend mentioned something to me about crocheting with old t-shirts, allowing you to mix up fabrics and colors without spending a fortune on yarn. It had never even occurred to me that something like that would even be a possibility. So, when I started looking into how to make a plastic bag holder, it occurred to me that maybe I could kill two birds with one stone, and upcycle some of the bags by using them to make a holder for the others. While looking around on the internet, I discovered that this is apparently not a new concept. It’s typically referred to as plarn – plastic yarn. I’ll admit I had my doubts. After all, how many times have you come home from the grocery store and found the bag barely holding together because something ripped a tiny hole in the side which rapidly grew into the size of a small crater?! But it turns out that this stuff is actually much sturdier to crochet with than it is to make bags out of. The reason is that it’s cut into small strips which end up being used at double thickness once they’ve been attached together. This does, however, have a downside – it’s not particularly easy to work with because it isn’t that flexible. I remember having to put it down and take a break at times because the plarn was hurting my hands.

Making the plarn on the other hand, is really really easy. Take your plastic bag and cut off the bottom and the handles, leaving you with a tube. Leave the sides in tact. Then, fold it or roll it to make it easier to work with, and cut it into strips about 1/2 – 1 inch wide. The exact width doesn’t matter, as long as they’re more or less the same, so don’t worry about trying to measure or be exact with it. Unfold each piece – you should now have several circles. To make one long piece, start joining them together. Lay one on top of another and pull one end of the bottom circle through the top one. Pull the top loop back through the bottom one, and gently pull them until a knot forms (sorry if that’s not the best explanation, hopefully the pictures will help!). Keep joining more and more loops onto the end, giving you one long strand of plarn. At some point you’ll want to start rolling it into a ball to keep it all under control. If you start turning it into a center pull ball, then you can keep adding to the outer end while rolling from the inside. I found this particularly useful, since I had no idea how much plarn I would need, so doing this allowed me to add extra bags as I was going. There’s a good tutorial on how to do this here. Now you have a ball of plarn, it’s time to start crocheting!

To make this plastic bag holder, you’ll need:

Your ball of plarn

2 elastic hair ties (you can use rubber bands if you want, but I find hair ties are easier to work with)

Crochet hook – the size isn’t too important, just make sure it isn’t too small because the tighter you make this, the more difficult the plarn is to work with. I wouldn’t go with anything smaller than 6mm, but bigger would be fine. It depends on what size you want, how tight you crochet and how pliable you find the plarn.

Row 1: Crochet around the first hair tie with single crochet. My hair ties were old and getting a little stretched out, so for me this ended up being 18 sc. The numbers I’ll use from here on are based on this, but if yours are different it isn’t important, you can add or remove stitches as necessary.

Row 2: chain 2 (counts as first dc), 2 dc in each stitch around (36 dc).

Row 4-18 (ish): chain 6 (counts as 1 dc and chain 4), skip 4 dc, dc in next stitch, *chain 4, skip 4 dc, dc in next stitch* repeat around. From here on you’ll be working in spirals. When you get back around to where you started row 4, there will be some overlap between the first and last set of chains and dc – just keep counting in 5s and working your way around to create a mesh – you want the dcs to be staggered from one round to the next. Keep this going until you have a tube of the size that you want. For me, this ended up being 15 rounds.

Row 19: dc in each stitch around (54 dc)

Row 20: dc2tog in each stitch around (27 dc)

Row 21: dc2tog in first stitch, dc in next stitch, repeat around (18 dc)

Row 22: sc in each stitch, crocheting around second hair tie

Row 23: chain required length for hanging loop (for me this was 14), sc in next stitch of row 22. Fasten off and weave in ends.

And there you have it – an upcycled plastic bag holder that’s totally customizable for your needs and preferences. Seeing as I already had all of the materials, this project cost me absolutely nothing!

Please note: you’re welcome to use this pattern for your own use and to make items to sell, but please link any posts back here. Thanks!